Core Competencies for
Climate Change Officers and Professionals
Climate change officers are professionals
who apply knowledge of climate-related risks and opportunities
to their organizations' near-term and long-term strategies.
These professionals help their organizations to adapt and thrive
in a world of climate uncertainty, and guide their organizations
toward strategic decisions that are simultaneously beneficial for
the organization as well as the climate. They apply a
broad range of related subject matter knowledge to managing
their organizations' operations, supply chain, products,
critical resources, services, and relationships with key
stakeholders.
The Role of the
Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO)
ACCO serves climate change professionals
working in all contexts within an organization, including:
- professionals whose roles and
responsibilities are focused exclusively upon addressing
climate change impacts upon an organization’s operations;
- professionals charged with
addressing sustainability and/or environmental issues
related to an organization’s operations; and
- professionals whose primary
functions are in areas that are not necessarily considered
environmental roles (e.g. supply chain and
procurement, facilities management, risk management,
investor relations, etc.).
ACCO supports the professional
development of individuals in positions having any level of
climate focus, providing resources, outlining professional
development tracks, and connecting them to their peers in order
to share successful strategies and lessons learned.
Aspiration for
the Climate Change Officer Profession
ACCO envisions the transformation of
business practices by a broad range of organizations large and
small; innovative partnerships that revolutionize the resiliency
of supply chains; and authentic governmental engagement with the
problem of climate change to achieve the scale of mitigation and
adaptation that can undergird a world economy and society based
in resiliency and health. Climate change officers play a key
role in bringing about this much-needed transformation.
Core
Competencies for Climate Change Officers:
Three Categories of Knowledge, Experience,
and Skills
Climate change officers have different
responsibilities depending on the extent to which the
organization’s climate-related risks and opportunities fall
within their purview. The following sets of knowledge,
experience, and skills encompass the most comprehensive set of
responsibilities. Professionals for whom only part of their job
duties pertain to climate will need to demonstrate specific
subsets of each category.
- Foundational knowledge and
skills include science literacy, environmental literacy,
knowledge of the policy landscape, and management acumen.
- Organizational knowledge and
experience include strategic planning, decision-making,
compliance, enterprise risk management, asset management,
the management of value and supply chains, corporate
communications and corporate social responsibility, and
organizational governance.
- Strategic execution competencies
are largely skills-based and include supporting
organizational change, helping to mitigate risk, engaging
stakeholders, being actively involved in policy efforts
beyond the walls of the organization and maintaining other
external partnerships.
As ACCO continues to develop training
and education programs supporting these competencies, ACCO envisions subsets of competencies that apply to
all types of professionals, while other subsets of competencies
may apply to individuals with niche roles or in sectors with
distinctive challenges and opportunities related to climate
change.
Foundational
Knowledge and Skills
Competencies in the foundational
category are primarily oriented toward general knowledge about
climate and organizational change.
Science Literacy
- Possess an understanding of
anthropogenic climate change, with a sound basis in
climate science
- Engage others in obtaining
credible information on climate-related opportunities
and risks related specifically to the organization
- Apply systems thinking to the
organization’s operations and its markets in order to
identify opportunities and risks and to address
potential challenges posed by climate disruption
Environmental and Economic Literacy
- Identify the impact of climate
change on the availability of natural resources of
strategic importance to the organization’s operations
and mission
- Maintain up-to-date knowledge
of current trends seen in the impacts of climate change
on ecosystems and the availability of natural resources
on which the organization depends
- Develop strategies for
optimizing the organization’s natural resource usage
given current understandings of climate change impacts,
for example, potential risks to and consequences of the
organization’s use of energy, water, and land
- Establish and continually
improve a rigorous system of accounting for the
organization’s greenhouse gas emissions, based on the
Greenhouse Gas Protocol and with appropriate third-party
verification
- Evaluate and validate programs
for carbon offsets and renewable energy credits, and
related emissions markets
- Identify adaptation strategies
for ecosystem impacts resulting from climate change that
are strategic to the organization’s operations and
mission
Understanding of the Policy
Landscape
- Develop the organization’s
ongoing positions on and implement its responses to
voluntary mandates (e.g., Carbon Disclosure Project,
Global Reporting Initiative, Water Disclosure Project,
CEO Water Mandate, government partnership programs,
etc.)
- Establish and continually
improve the organization’s capacity to track and assess
the impact on the organization’s operations and mission
of existing and evolving financial, energy, and climate
legislation and regulations
- Assess and continually improve
the ability of the organization’s own policies and those
of its supply chain partners to leverage opportunities
and mitigate risks associated with climate change
Management Acumen
- Ensure that the organization
takes into account the economics and future prices of
energy, water, air, and other natural resources in its
strategies, plans, and decision-making
- Understand and advocate for the
appropriate use of system tools such as biodiversity
assessments and product life-cycle assessments
- Develop, continually improve,
and secure resourcing for a portfolio of projects to
advance the organization’s strategy for opportunities
and risks associated with climate change
- Define, structure, and resource
the successful execution of high-value, complex projects
that contribute meaningfully to the mitigation of and/or
adaptation to climate change
- Use sound cost/benefit analysis
to convince the organization’s leadership to resource
initiatives that will lower the organization’s
contributions to climate-relevant emissions and to
protect the organization from the impacts of climate
disruption
Organizational
Knowledge & Experience
Competencies in the organizational
category pertain to how the climate change officer combines his
or her foundational knowledge with organization-specific
knowledge and experience.
Strategic Planning
- Contribute relevant climate
change considerations to the strategic planning process
by providing the necessary data on the organization’s
own operations as well as global climate data
- Conversely, articulate how the
organization’s strategy, mission, and strategic plan can
inform the organization’s climate change program
- Assess the vulnerabilities of
assets, product lines, and service offerings to physical
climate change impacts as well as to potential
regulations and legislation
Decision-Making
- Ascertain which types of
decisions in the organization require or warrant the
incorporation of climate change considerations, and
implement a system to codify their incorporation
- Identify the key people in the
organization whose participation is essential for the
successful implementation of the climate change program
- Provide guidance to the
organization’s leadership on optimal ways to incorporate
climate change considerations into critical
decision-making
- Engage key stakeholders to
catalyze the key decisions relative to mitigating and/or
adapting to climate change that the organization needs
to make
Compliance and Enterprise Risk Management
- Apply the climate change
perspective to the organization’s compliance and
enterprise risk management programs to enable the
organization to increase value in the short- and
long-term
- Utilize a systems approach and
compile necessary data for the relevant climate change
considerations to be incorporated into the compliance
and enterprise risk management programs
Asset Management
- Assess and develop strategies
to address the relationship between carbon emissions and
the impacts of climate change on natural resources
critical to the organization’s assets
- Utilize a systems approach and
compile necessary data for integrating the relevant
climate change considerations into the organization’s
asset management strategy
- Develop mechanisms with which
to factor in upstream and downstream considerations when
the organization considers upgrades or other changes to
assets
Value and Supply Chains
- Collaborate with the
organization’s leadership to apply the lens of climate
change to continually identify risks and opportunities
associated with the organization’s value chains (e.g.,
innovation, product/service development, operations,
etc.) and supply chains
- Work effectively with the
organization’s leadership overseeing innovation,
product/service development, operations, and supply
chains to mitigate risks and develop opportunities
associated with climate change
- Team up with organizational
leadership to prioritize any climate-related
opportunities by understanding the relationship between
climate impacts and the organization’s market drivers,
such as customer requirements, investor requirements,
and the regulatory landscape
Communications and Corporate
Social Responsibility
- Work effectively with the
organization’s communications unit to incorporate the
organization’s position on climate change into
reputation management and meaningful messaging that is
credible with key stakeholders
- Build the organization’s
capacity to position products and services responsibly
with regard to climate change and related environmental
impacts
- Identify and develop the
organization’s capacity to support non-profit efforts
aimed at driving social consensus on anthropogenic
climate change, mitigating climate change, and adapting
to the impacts of climate change
Governance
- Establish an effective
governance structure, such as a climate impacts
committee, that will allocate the necessary resources
and establish organizational policies and procedures to
identify and mitigate risks and develop opportunities
associated with climate change as these pertain to the
organization
- Serve as chair or support the
chair of the governance body
- Orchestrate strategies to
deliver increased organizational value through solutions
and processes that go across organizational boundaries
and silos
Strategic
Execution
Competencies in the strategic execution
category center around the climate change officer’s ability to
put his or her organizational knowledge and experience into
action, bringing the key climate considerations to bear on the
organization’s operations, strategic planning, risk mitigation,
and stakeholder engagement.
Enterprise Risk Mitigation
- Perform economic risk
assessments of climate change impacts that the
organization can use to inform its risk mitigation
actions and plans
- Demonstrate to stakeholders the
organization’s strategy for addressing climate risks
through its risk mitigation plans and actions
- Address the climate-related
risks to market drivers and market requirements through
risk mitigation plans and actions
- Address longer-term risks that
have the potential to substantially impact the
organization by beginning risk mitigation efforts as
early as possible
- Ensure that risk mitigation
plans are articulated and executed across all levels of
the organization
Supporting Change Within the
Organization
- Develop education and
communication plans to support the changes needed at all
levels of the organization
- Raise awareness within the
organization about the potential impacts of climate
change on its mission and operations, in order to
inspire action aimed at leveraging the opportunities and
mitigating the risks
- Provide employees with a frame
of reference to enable the right level of action to
address climate change, according to the organization’s
mission and operations and each employee’s job duties or
overall level of concern
- Participate in relevant
professional networks devoted to climate change
mitigation and adaptation in order to relay to the
organization the best practices and optimal tools for
successful climate change programs
- Enlist the key people within
the organization, as well as external people and
organizations, whose involvement is essential for the
successful implementation of the organization’s climate
change programs
- Support employees as they build
their climate change expertise, think through
system-wide issues, and take action according to their
role and place in the organization
- Work with people and
departments that pose obstacles to the organization’s
efforts to address short- and long-term risks posed by
climate change, converting them into supporters of the
organization’s climate change programs
- Embed the urgency of climate
change impacts in decision-making, strategies,
processes, and initiatives at every level of the
organization
Stakeholder Engagement
- Provide stakeholders with the
strategic context for the organization’s product and
service innovation, placing innovation in the context of
potential climate change impacts
- Work effectively with the
organization’s communications department to incorporate
the organization’s position on climate change into
reputation management and meaningful messaging that is
credible with key stakeholders
- Articulate succinctly the
distinctions and overlaps between the topics of
sustainability, greenhouse gas reduction, climate change
mitigation, and climate change adaptation, assisting the
organization in helping to increase these concepts
currency in the broader culture
- Establish relationships with a
broad diversity of stakeholders across sectors,
organizations, and hierarchy, including those with
different perspectives on climate change, to define
creative strategies and innovative partnerships with
which to address climate change and the attendant
opportunities and risks
- Collaborate with climate change
officers in other organizations to discuss diverse types
of climate change programs
Reaching Beyond the Organization
- Help to drive legislation and
modifications of regulatory environments so that they
optimally support organizational strategies that have
sufficient magnitude to meaningfully address and adapt
to climate change
- Form the necessary external
partnerships and collaborations with supply chain
partners, competitors, and others to accelerate
strategies to mitigate risk and adapt to the impacts of
climate change
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